I want to stretch my partition. [SOLVED]

[Nebetsu]

I tried using qtparted but it doesn't want to resize it. I have it like this:

hda1: linux (ext3): ~18GB
hda2: free space: ~18GB
hda3: linux swap: ~1GB

What I want to do is stretch hda1 so it fills up the free space. Does anyone know how I can go about doing this?

[yabbadabbadont]

I believe that you have to delete the partition containing the free space (hda2) so that the partitioner will see that it is truly free. Then you should be able to resize hda1.

Edit: You should be able to do all of this from qtparted.
_________________

[Nebetsu]

I can't delete it. It's just free space in between hda1 and hda3 I guess.

[drwook]

Well I've done exactly this a good number of times using qtparted... Are you sure there's no partition there where you think there's free space? Have you tried right clicking and seeing if there's a delete option? If so, there's a partition there

Personally I'd always advise a backup before doing this... Never had a problem myself but...

[x22]

All partitions on hda have to be unmounted to do this.

If qtparted does not work, you may use gparted or parted or fdisk + hdparm (for reloading partition table) + resize2fs.

[drwook]

[Sachankara]

A tip: Buy a new harddisk, create a Device Mapper volume group on it, create a couple of partitions (logical volumes) on it in ReiserFS or XFS and then transfer all your data from the old drive to the new one. With LVM you'll be able to resize partitions on live file systems, while you're using them and they are mounted. LVM also have other cool stuff like mirroring, snapshots, bad block relocation, etc. It's actually quite simple to use.

For example: If I want to add 1 GiB to my home partition, all I have to do is this:

[syg00]

Let's see some real information - output from "fdisk -l".
_________________
Got a good backup ??? - any advice offered presumes you have.

[padoor]

if u delete the hda3 it might see the free space.
cfdisk also may be useful to get some more info about the hdd.
_________________
reach out a little bit more to catch it (DON'T BELIEVE the advocate part under my user name)

[Nebetsu]

[yabbadabbadont]

You will have to be booted from a live cd in order to resize a partition on the drive. Or at least be booted using a harddrive other than the one containing the partition you wish to change. Basically, the drive can't be in use at all when you do it.
_________________

[syg00]

I generally also recommend Knoppix for all "recovery" type work, but in this case the gparted livecd would probably be the go.

There is nothing I can see in the fdisk list to indicate why the resizing shouldn't work.
Personally I generally do these things by hand rather than use a GUI.
However, last time I tried to resize an ext2(3), I could never get it to complete successfully. Others have had better luck.
Now I just don't bother - I delete the partitions(s) involved, create new, make the filesystem of choice and restore. May take a little longer, but you know what happened at each stage. And it's not done that often in a normal environment.

The suggestion to use LVM is also something to think about. If I didn't screw with my systems so much I would use it without question.
_________________
Got a good backup ??? - any advice offered presumes you have.

[Nebetsu]

It's not mounted. It's not being used. I'm using QTParted. It's not resizing... >>

[padoor]

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 2350 18876343+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 4701 4867 1341427+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

the cylinder numbers are not continuous .there is a gap from 2351 to 4700
u can afford to delete the swap for temporary and make the continuous space available
than only it can see the freespace to resize .after resizing u can make swap again.
_________________
reach out a little bit more to catch it (DON'T BELIEVE the advocate part under my user name)

[devsk]

[Nebetsu]

Would I have to use Norton Ghost or would I be able to do a standard copy?

[devsk]

[padoor]

i would say the backup is not necessary if the parted is used carefully.
u can boot from the cd and run parted.
delete the hda3 and extend the hda to higher cylinder numbers and save.
make hda2 swap and save change the drive letter in fstab also.
it should not kill the existing data or installation.
if u are not sure how to do then better back it up and do afresh partition.
think of how u restore the backed up installation after making new partitions.
_________________
reach out a little bit more to catch it (DON'T BELIEVE the advocate part under my user name)

[devsk]

[drwook]

[Gentree]

[Nebetsu]

[yabbadabbadont]

If you have a swap partition on any of your drives, knoppix will use it by default unless you specify "noswap" as an option when you boot the cd. If you didn't do that you can, from a terminal, issue "swapoff -a" to disable swap. You can use the "free" command in a terminal to see if swap is currently active.
_________________

[Nebetsu]

[yabbadabbadont]